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history of algebra

...of its central ideas had been transmitted well before that time to China and the Islamic world. Indian arithmetic, moreover, developed consistent and correct rules for operating with positive and
negative numbers and for treating zero like any other number. Several hundred years passed before European mathematicians fully integrated such ideas into the developing discipline of algebra.

...(for 12 squares) and even
m12
m (to indicate −12
x−2). This was, in fact, the first time that
negative numbers were explicitly used in European mathematics. Chuquet could now write an equation as follows:
.3.2p.12 ...

vectors

...represents a one-dimensional quantity (such as an ordinary number) known as a scalar. Multiplying a vector by a scalar changes the vector’s length but not its direction, except that multiplying by a
negative number will reverse the direction of the vector’s arrow. For example, multiplying a vector by 1/2 will result in a vector half as long in the same direction, while multiplying a vector by...